SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

It's going to be my Kodi living room box. Does AMD have some sort of SLI with their APU and GPU now?

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They used to support it on lower end gpu and apu back during the HD7xxx days. Idk about Polaris and Vega though. Honestly anything more than an RX560 and the integrated graphics would just slow down the dedicated graphics card. Especially a Vega 56 or something like that. Maybe if you have a 2400G and an rx550. That's about the only amd gpu that needs a boost.

It's going to be my Kodi living room box. Does AMD have some sort of SLI with their APU and GPU now?

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No crossfire at all. I just happen to come up with a NANO 56 with no where else to mount it but in the sentry

I use mine as an HTPC Kodi also. Hows the ambient temp in the GPU area with just the drives? Mine get fairly toasty. Before adding the GPU i had my M.2 mounted inside a PCIe heatsink and added a PCIe blower to cool that section down.

No crossfire at all. I just happen to come up with a NANO 56 with no where else to mount it but in the sentry

I use mine as an HTPC Kodi also. Hows the ambient temp in the GPU area with just the drives? Mine get fairly toasty. Before adding the GPU i had my M.2 mounted inside a PCIe heatsink and added a PCIe blower to cool that section down.

I don't plan on overclocking anything. Can anyone please advise on what I can expect in terms of temps?

Thanks!

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It should all fit. According to gigabyte the g1 gaming is 114mm tall. You may have a little difficulty squeezing the 8pin power connector in but you should be good.

Temps should be alright. I have a 4790k and previously a 1080FE (sold it to miners for profit). My 4790k is delidded with liquid metal and I used the Thermolab LP53 cpu cooler which is definitely better than the nh-l9i. If you stick with the Noctua you'll want high end thermal paste like Cryonaut (non conductive) and potentially and slight undervolt. But it should be perfectly manageable.

It should all fit. According to gigabyte the g1 gaming is 114mm tall. You may have a little difficulty squeezing the 8pin power connector in but you should be good.

Temps should be alright. I have a 4790k and previously a 1080FE (sold it to miners for profit). My 4790k is delidded with liquid metal and I used the Thermolab LP53 cpu cooler which is definitely better than the nh-l9i. If you stick with the Noctua you'll want high end thermal paste like Cryonaut (non conductive) and potentially and slight undervolt. But it should be perfectly manageable.

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I actually have the LP53 cooler and the Noctua L9i FAN, which I plan on jerryrigging together. Forgot to mention that. Thanks for the peace of mind. Now I just need to get my hands on one of these...

I actually have the LP53 cooler and the Noctua L9i FAN, which I plan on jerryrigging together. Forgot to mention that. Thanks for the peace of mind. Now I just need to get my hands on one of these...

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It's worth noting gpu manufacturers measure their cards in different ways so I could be wrong on the g1 gaming being able to fit. But you can go to the original sentry website where they have a gpu diagram of limitations. You can measure your card and compare. I assume v2.0 will have almost identical gpu limitations.

I still have a v1 Sentry (Black) in its original unopened packaging if anyone is interested in buying it off of me for what I paid + shipping costs. It looks like my next PC build is further away than initially anticipated and I'm sure someone that missed out on the initial crowdfunding campaign would appreciate the opportunity to get their hands on one.

We still have many things to improve, so for sure there will be at least one more prototype before we will be able to check manufacturing repeatability. We will try to make some benchmarks in the middle of this week.

We have been stuck on trying to figure out whether we should try to support 52 mm AIO package (27 mm radiator with 25 mm fan) and how to do it for a bit.

The problem with that is, we would have to move the center rail up above the radiator and fan while making sure the screws holding the riser and 2.5" hdd bracket will not go up as well, because that would limit 2.5" compatibility significantly.

We have spent significant amount of time this year simplifying the center rail to make it easier to manufacture and lighter (as visible in the photo galleries) and modifying it to support 52 mm AIO package would make it over complicated once again.

We also do not want one configuration that is not necessarily going to be a mainstream one to affect whole construction in such significant way. Most likely mainstream configurations will have a full length GPU instead of AIO + itx-sized one.

Because of that, we have decided to figure out first if that 50 mm AIO limit is actually a problem and if using slim fan with 27 mm radiator (which is most common among 120 mm AIOs) will be terrible or not.

We have done series of tests this week with Corsair Hydro H75 paired up with 20 mm thick DEEPCOOL GS120 SLIM adding up to a 47 mm package. We have tested three AM4 CPUs with different TDPs: R7 1700/R5 2600X/R7 2700X. Tests were done during two cloudy/overcast days with 25~27°C ambient temperature.

We have decided to compile captured footage with temps and clocks tracking instead of compiling data into charts because we feel like it will give you a better understanding how components behave while playing games rather than when looking at raw data.

Here's the video:

General outcome of those tests is that making support for 52 mm is NOT necessary.

It is already tight for tube bending between the 27 mm thick radiator and the cover and going higher by 8 mm wouldn't really help. Note that there are connectors for the tubes sticking out of the radiator that are inside the tube ends.

Also I think that a 92 mm LQ radiator with a single slim fan is a bit counter productive if you can do the same size of radiator directly on the CPU - you're just delaying the heating up of the CPU by water volume in the tubes. You have to have thick 92 mm fans for it to make more sense.

Here's another update on the performance with additional configurations - with AIO in horizontal orientation and with NH-L9i in vertical orientation. Horizontal orientation on the latter will be made as soon as possible, I didn't have enough time to capture all footage for it. First video also here to simplify things. EDIT: Added last video

I have to explain my reasoning behind giving you this test data as captured footage rather than combining them into charts with idle/avg/max temps. I know this is boring as hell to watch all of this and I know comparing one to another (AIO vs air, vertical vs horizontal) will not be perfectly easy.
First of all compiled data doesn't show exactly how the hardware behaves. If I were to record max temps reached, those will show the spikes when cooling didn't catch up to the increase load yet.

Second thing is the fact that charts don't show how temperatures correlate to the load and clocks. This is especially important in terms of GPU because a lot of people don't get how turbo boost works and will take a single number from all of the data without understanding the correlation and base their opinion on that single number, and what can be even worse will pick their hardware based on that.

So this way, by having all the footage with all required data shown on top of it, almost "frame by frame" you can run the same benchmark on your own system and see how it correlates to that. It also helps us do the same thing - we can get back to this captured footage and see how it behaves in specific workload etc.

Finally compiled performance data will definitely come with reviews anyway, but those won't show you this kind footage like we are releasing here.

I hope that's fair enough explanation for this way of doing it.

Getting to some basic analysis of the tests and what you can and should take a note of:
1) Ryzen 7 2700X shows temp 10°C higher to shift fan curve up and speed up the fan. I only realised this after capturing the footage and it seems to be riva tuner statistic server not handling this exception. Core Temp shows 10 degree lower temp that is usually matching what 2600X has at the same desktop workload. If you take that 10 degree difference into account, it actually shows that 2700X is often slightly cooler than 2600X on the same workload because the fan is spinning faster at this point.

2) There are timestamps in each video description. Ashes of Singularity is a good test to see how CPU intensive workloads perform.

3) Take note of GPU load and temperature when seeing turbo clocks of 1800+ MHz and when seeing base 1607 MHz clock.

4) All tests were made without VSync meaning there was no FPS limitation on the workload. If you are using a 60 Hz 1080p panel to play games with VSync then your load will be limited and you will get lower temps.

5) In horizontal position limited access to fresh air for both GPU and AIO will heat up the GPU faster to target temperature of 80 degrees and it will really quick drop down clock to base 1607 MHz.

6) With 105W TDP CPU AIO may bleed hot air to GPU in horizontal position with CPU intensive workloads.

7) Youtube annotations are not supported anymore and therefore there's a note in form of poll attached to each video.

A little update: We have finalised documentation for prototype 2 this week. It took so much time because of two things:

I needed to thoroughly test the prototype 1 and figure out what needs to be fixed/reworked for prototype 2. Apart from obvious precision/manufacturing issues that were visible right away on first checkups and we knew what to do with them, there were few design decisions that we've debated over and over for some time before we came to final conclusions on how to approach them.

Secondly our company had quite a few big projects piled up whole summer to the point where Zombi was hardly at home for quite long and didn't have time to get through all changes in cad files and update documentation for next prototype until this week.

With updated designs it seems like we should done with redesigns if one of the manufacturing issues is resolved and if this second prototype doesn't show new unexpected issues/challanges (it shouldn't though, changes weren't that significant). At this point we are really satisfied with what we have in terms of design for chassis body and what's left is to finish prototyping, do a prototype batch to make sure we have repeatability and to make some review samples. Meanwhile we will also have to finalise designs for the boxes so we can pack review samples and prepare some tooling required for full scale production.

We'll place order for prototype 2 this week and we hope to get it done by the end of the month (low priority for single unit once again), but if we get that and it'll be final without issues, we'll order batch of 25~50 bodies and it should have higher priority than a single prototype, but we'll have to go through all of them to check quality and this takes time as well. So hopefully we'll be shipping review samples at the end of the year.

By the way: I have compiled and uploaded remaining tests - Cryorig C7 and Wraith Stealth:

Almost cannot wait for the finished product. But I have a question regarding CPU-Cooling. According to your website the Sentry will support coolers up to 47mm (Intel Stock cooler).
What is the absolute maximum cooler height? I mean the height so the cooler barely touches the cover.

I'm asking because you posted some interesting Pictures in the older Sentry Thread.

According to the old thread, even a modified ThermalRight AXP-100RH will fit and can get good results.

Almost cannot wait for the finished product. But I have a question regarding CPU-Cooling. According to your website the Sentry will support coolers up to 47mm (Intel Stock cooler).
What is the absolute maximum cooler height? I mean the height so the cooler barely touches the cover.

I'm asking because you posted some interesting Pictures in the older Sentry Thread.

According to the old thread, even a modified ThermalRight AXP-100RH will fit and can get good results.

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It is still 47 mm, it might be close to 48 mm depending on the CPU height etc (not all sockets are made equal height, not all boards have the same PCB thickness/height).

The modded AXP-100RH is modded in a way it's lower - the fin stack is pushed down from original design and heat pipes are bent to do this.

This 47 mm limit won't change for Sentry 2.0

For power hungry CPUs you should use water cooling if you really have CPU intensive workloads, otherwise we recommend going with 65W TDP CPUs for now or waiting for DAN's cooler to be released.

We have received the second prototype last week, we had to make few small updates in the designs and after that we have ordered sample batch (finally).

At this point we're really happy with what we have and we feel that the sample batch should be in manufacturing ready state.
Looking back at Sentry 1.1, what we have now is more refined version of it, which is slightly more versatile, significantly more user friendly and is performing slightly better.
While all that might look like a small incremental update, it's still a great step ahead in terms of being able to manufacture this long term and hopefully get into retail at some point.

Finally, as some of you probably noticed, I was occupied last weekend with testing of Black Ridge cooler. The unit we've got had few fitting issues and it's not compatible with Sentry. The biggest problem is that fin stack is going over the PCI-E slot which in Sentry means it poses a risk of breaking the riser by pressing down on it with the fin stack (I actually broke mine while testing). I have forwarded this info among other issues both to the manufacturer directly and through CaseKing and It would be nice if they were to solve this issue. Note however that even if this is fixed, the Black ridge will block both 2.5" slots in Sentry so you'll end up with possibility of installing just one drive freely in front of PSU without attachment.

We plan on going with a campaign because making small batches like the one sold early this year are both problematic for us in terms of payment processing and timeline of delivery, and pissing off people because such batches sell within hours, so it's better to gather big amount of orders and make it properly at once.

As for how long, the campaign itself is not that big of a problem at this point, I think, since we've been there and we just need to update campaign story and set on proper items/perks sold in the campaign.

The question is how much time it'll take to have some reviews online before campaign launch and most of them online before campaign ends. And we can only start to schedule that when we know how did it go with the batch and that we have review units ready, so we can get in touch with media and talk about timing it up. In our situation it's not about making an embargo date, because that's not right, but the fact that our product will not be a priority review for most of the media, especially right after CES. We don't want to end up with launched campaign without reviews and we don't want our campaign launched long after the reviews this time, like we did with first campaign.

Would be good if we could have the campaign sometime in February, but so far delays tend to pile up, so this is not a definite date. Especially if we get the sample batch around the end of the year and we just start talking about shipping review samples then. The reviews may easily slip past February.

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We realise that it takes so long for us to get there, but we want to make it the best we can with what we've learned from first version and campaign, so we don't want to rush things. We also don't want to state specific dates until we are sure we are ready.

- Last month we ordered a batch of 50 Sentry 2.0 cases to check the repeatability of the current design. This week we received those elements and we can say that we are very happy with their quality. Right now we are waiting only for the feet for horizontal installation which we ordered and we will be ready to send our prototypes for first external reviews.

- With this new test batch of cases we were finally able to check how much weight new Sentry lost compared to the previous design. Sentry 2.0 body will be 0,25 kg lighter then the one from 1.1 revision.

- We designed a new shipping box for this revision of Sentry. It is a 5-layer cardboard with high quality internal foam which should protect the product a little bit better from the couriers cleverness, than the shipping box from the last campaign (2.5m drop test, 1-floor stairs drop test and 5-minutes football test with one of the new prototypes inside... all passed ).

- The dimensions of the new transport package are: 40x40x15cm, 4.4 kg. We asked DHL representative for the new shipping offer for our new campaign and we were informed that after next weekend we should get it.

- Right now we are pushing everything forward so we would be able to start the new campaign around the end of March (We do not know how long we will be waiting for the reviews of our prototypes, so March is a safe date).

To sum up:
We are on the best way to start gathering orders in the next two months. We hope you can wait that long.

Wow that's a lot more ventilation! The picture with the case lid standing up really demonstrates it. That's crazy! No wonder 2.0 lost so much weight. Looks good!

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There's ~60% more total perforation area in 2.0 by tighter hole spacing and few additional spots. This does not mean it's going to scale linearly to ~60% better cooling though - your mileage will vary based on how much your card actually can use this additional vent area.

For 150W TDP GPUs this difference may not change much versus 1.1, because it was already optimised and tested with such cards in mind, but this should give more breathing room for cards that pull 180W and 250W like 1080TI you were putting inside anyway.

As for the weight loss, there's more to it than just more ventilation. We've slimmed down quite a lot of non-structural areas of the internal structure of case to do this as well.

I finally got around to reading the online manual and have some grammar/wording suggestions. I couldn't determine a good way to show what the original text was, but in general the red text is an inserted word/letter with multiple red words replacing several words. Overall the manual seems easy to understand with only a few word choice issues. I'll also state that although English is my first language my grammar isn't always perfect so feel free to disagree with my suggestions. I'll hide my suggestions in a spoiler so I don't create a huge wall of text that most people won't care about.

Note: I found 3 pages (5, 20, and 24) where you spell, 'organize' as 'organise'. After looking on the internet it looks like organise is the preferred spelling outside of North America. There are two pages (25 and 26) where you write, 'organization' so I would just make all places be consistent with spelling; I don't think it matters which spelling you choose as long as it's consistent (either changing 'organization' to organisation or 'organise' to 'organize'.

Page 9
Getting close to 50 mm of total package thickness will limit airflow between the fan and chassis cover

AIO Packaging Compatibility

Page 10
Use washers if your M3.5 screws have an uneven bottom to prevent them from scratching powder coating surface on the outside of chassis.

Page 12
Make sure to attach all required cables if you are using modular PSU before installing it inside.

Page 16
Riser is held tightly by its plastic slot body rather than screwing the PCB to the chassis. This way the delicate connection between the slot and the pcb is safe even when mounting big and heavy open air cooled cards.

Screws are used to apply pressure to the metal on the riser’s pci slot body and do not go through the holes in the pcb but lock its movement in front of it. This way multiple models of risers may be used regardless of the screw location.

Page 20
Plug in and organize motherboard and CPU power cables and route the SATA cables for 2.5” hard drive.

Handle the USB 3.0 20-pin connector with care.
The plug is bulky, but header pins are fragile.

Page 23
Connect SATA cables to 3.5” HDD before putting it inside the case. Use washers if your M3.5 screws have an uneven bottom to protect powder coating surface on the outside of chassis from being scratched by those screws.

I finally got around to reading the online manual and have some grammar/wording suggestions. I couldn't determine a good way to show what the original text was, but in general the red text is an inserted word/letter with multiple red words replacing several words. Overall the manual seems easy to understand with only a few word choice issues. I'll also state that although English is my first language my grammar isn't always perfect so feel free to disagree with my suggestions. I'll hide my suggestions in a spoiler so I don't create a huge wall of text that most people won't care about.

Note: I found 3 pages (5, 20, and 24) where you spell, 'organize' as 'organise'. After looking on the internet it looks like organise is the preferred spelling outside of North America. There are two pages (25 and 26) where you write, 'organization' so I would just make all places be consistent with spelling; I don't think it matters which spelling you choose as long as it's consistent (either changing 'organization' to organisation or 'organise' to 'organize'.

Page 9
Getting close to 50 mm of total package thickness will limit airflow between the fan and chassis cover

AIO Packaging Compatibility

Page 10
Use washers if your M3.5 screws have an uneven bottom to prevent them from scratching powder coating surface on the outside of chassis.

Page 12
Make sure to attach all required cables if you are using modular PSU before installing it inside.

Page 16
Riser is held tightly by its plastic slot body rather than screwing the PCB to the chassis. This way the delicate connection between the slot and the pcb is safe even when mounting big and heavy open air cooled cards.

Screws are used to apply pressure to the metal on the riser’s pci slot body and do not go through the holes in the pcb but lock its movement in front of it. This way multiple models of risers may be used regardless of the screw location.

Page 20
Plug in and organize motherboard and CPU power cables and route the SATA cables for 2.5” hard drive.

Handle the USB 3.0 20-pin connector with care.
The plug is bulky, but header pins are fragile.

Page 23
Connect SATA cables to 3.5” HDD before putting it inside the case. Use washers if your M3.5 screws have an uneven bottom to protect powder coating surface on the outside of chassis from being scratched by those screws.